Inline roller skates have met with popularity, enabling many of the advantages of ice skates on almost any even surface at any season of the year. Indeed, dry pucks have appeared on the market, a first step in allowing the game of hockey on inline roller skates.
FIG. 1 shows the starting point, an ice figure skate. The straight portion of the blade 1 makes lengthy contact with the ice, to provide for thrust and gliding. The forward portion of the blade spirals upward, making reduced contact with the ice to allow skating in a curvilinear path and even spinning. The shoe, usually part of the ice skate, is schematically shown but need not detail it here.
FIG. 2 shows the presently available wheeled analog, the inline roller skate. Instead of straight, continuous contact with the skating surface, three or four wheels make straight line contact at the wheel peripheries. The wheels attach to the shoe by way of a yoke 8. This simulates the straight edge portion of the ice skate.